Asking fans for a dance – Emmanouil Karalis and Miltiadis Tentoglou on Sechseläutenplatz

When the accelerando of the Sirtaki sounds on Sechseläutenplatz on Wednesday, 27 August, the square becomes an open-air stage. A massive temporary arena sits nestled between Bellevue square, Opernhaus, Bernhard Theater, and the blue of Lake Zurich – all set to produce heroic epics. The cast will feature Emmanouil Karalis (24) and Miltiadis Tentoglou (27), two sons of Hellas, both determined to jump right on to the Mount Olympus of athletics.

The backdrop would make an acceptable setting in Ancient Greece, where theatre, the arts, music, dance, and exercise were equally celebrated, where physical aesthetics merged with cultural activities. And even though we find ourselves in Zurich, thousands of years down the road, athletes are about to present their skill, in the true sense of the Greek term “áthlos”, on a most prestigious stage. They will perform in a competition, creating a form of art – in the tradition of Olympia, but in the rhythm of the present.

A master of the final attempt

Born in the city of Grevena in northern Greece and adored across the entire country down to the Peloponnese region, Miltiadis Tentoglou started to defy gravity as a young adult already. Starting out as a parkour athlete, the now 27-year-old eventually found his way to athletics, the oldest Olympic sport (along with Greaco-Roman wrestling). In the long jump pit, he has achieved everything there is to achieve. He is a two-time Olympic champion and a world and European champion (both indoor and outdoor); all in all, he won 11 international gold medals. His fame, however, is not only based on his titles and athletics laurels, but also on the way he wins them.

Time after time, “Miltos”, as he is affectionately called in his home country, finds himself on the verge of failing. Or, rather, he often waits for the final round before he pulls his miraculous jump out of the hat. When others are already celebrating, when the competition is about to run out of steam, the master of the final attempt enters the stage. Much like a dramaturg, Tentoglou designs a competition as a play. He builds tension, starting out slowly and then picking up a rhythm and tempo, before taking the final run-up and jumping into the ecstatic applause of his audience. At the 2024 European championships, for instance, this special interpretation of the Sirtaki took him to 8.65m in the sixth and final round and earned him a win over Italy’s world U20 record holder Mattia Furlani, Swiss world and European championship bronze medallist Simon Ehammer, and over all his own previous performances.

Tentoglou’s Helvetic challenger

On Zurich’s Sechseläutenplatz, Miltiadis Tentoglou will be facing his Helvetic challenger, and friend, again. The two do not only respect each other as opponents, they also share a friendship that goes beyond the long jump pit. Ehammer stayed on Crete for a training camp last spring. They worked up a sweat in training sessions between olive groves and the Mediterranean sea, shared a laugh, had dinner, and discussed millimetre decisions at take-off boards.

“We are good friends. Even though I really try to avoid getting beaten by a decathlete,” says Tentoglou, whose father Georgios owns a Greek restaurant in Germany. The Swiss allrounder from Appenzell, a Wanda Diamond League champion in 2023, is still waiting for his first 8m jump at one of the two major meetings in his home country. Specialist Tentoglou, in contrast, knows how it is done in Zurich. The 2022 world leader won his only diamond so far at Letzigrund Stadium. The result? 8.42m, in the final attempt, of course.

Karalis –a cheerful soul flying high

Tentoglou’s fellow countryman and training partner Emmanouil “Manolo” Karalis will be meeting with even stronger resistance on Sechseläutenplatz. Even though the “perpetual runner-up” just won his first Wanda Diamond League meeting in Lausanne.  A cheerful soul, he introduced himself as a “young, handsome, magnificent, caring, good-looking, and fun” athlete to the social media community. And, indeed, the Athens native with Ugandan roots sports wild rasta braids, and he exudes a contagious energy and the ease and passion of a dancer.

To Manolo Karalis, poles are not tools, they are partners in a smooth, rhythmic, at times unpredictable dance. When his pole broke during warm-up at Weltklasse Zürich in 2024, he responded with an acrobatic backflip, for instance.

Opponents underestimate the improvisation artist at their peril. The 2016 European U18 champion is one of very few athletes who can challenge current highflyer Armand Duplantis at least to some degree.

Mondo – a source of motivation for Manolo

Motivated by his Swedish peer and companion “Mondo”, “Manolo” managed to soar to ever higher spheres and break barriers himself. After placing fourth and third at the Olympic Games in 2021 and 2024, he became the first Black pole vaulter to clear the magic six-metre mark.

Where others are awestruck, the courageous aerialist thrives. He cleared 6m and jumped even higher ten times in eleven competitions this year. At the national championships earlier this month, he spiralled up to a dizzying height of 6.08m, a result that put him in fourth place of the all-time top list, right behind world record holder Duplantis and his predecessors Renaud Lavillenie and Sergey Bubka.

Support from his family

Even though soaring like Icarus, Emmanouil Karalis is not in danger of coming too close to the sun and crashing. After a difficult period that was overshadowed by injuries, racism, and depression, he was struggling. But his family picked him back up again. Thanks to the people closest to him, his Mediterranean joy of living returned. And he has been filling entire arenas with it ever since. His mother Sarah and twin sister Angeliki were there in 2024, when Manolo, spurred on by Mondo Duplantis and Sam Kendricks, catapulted himself onto the Olympic podium and when he carried the blue-and-white flag of Greece during the closing show in Paris.

His father Charalampos, a former decathlete with a personal best of 4.80m in the pole vault, serves as the main coach for the current European indoor champion and world indoor championship silver medallist. But in addition, Manolo’s team includes Marcin Szcezpanski, who also coaches Polish world championship silver medallist Piotr Lisek, and George Pomaski, the long-term coach of Miltiadis Tentoglou. The two national record holders therefore do a fair share of their running and strength training units together.

More than a touch of Olympia

Miltiadis Tentoglou and Emmanouil Karalis – two Greek friends, who could not be more different. One of them quiet, timid almost, a cool dramaturg and master of his play; the other extroverted, never at a loss for a pleasantry, a jokester, who does not mind improvising.

Still, the two share more than their origin, their PUMA-like jumps, and the art of suspending gravity. They both love the big stage, can seize the moment, and are able to enrapture an entire arena. Both will no doubt captivate the Zurich crowds, when they ask them for a dance, when they reimagine the Sirtaki, and when they present their 21st century versions of ancient disciplines. A Greek celebration in the heart of a Swiss city.